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I'm talking about downtowns that were vibrant, economically healthy, and bustling with commerce in 2019, but now feel bleak, deserted, and struggling.
I'll throw Downtown Seattle out there - it has been hit HARD. Lots of graffiti, boarded up buildings, permanently closed restaurants and bars, large homeless encampments, exponentially less foot traffic and vibrancy, and just a sketchy feeling in general. In 2019 Seattle had a top 5 or 6 Downtown in the country in terms of activity and vibrancy. That is not the case anymore.
It’ll come back. Downtown Seattle commercial buildings are already leasing pretty well. But it may never be as vibrant as it was.
But yeah, during the pandemic most of the street level activity switched from downtown to neighborhood commercial strips. Pioneer Sq is a giant tent city now. I haven’t done any shopping in downtown in months. Finding myself going to Bellevue more. Bellevue is definitely winning from the pandemic.
Pretty much all CBD's in the US have been hit hard. So many people are remote workers now and may not return to the office building (s) after the pandemic. If I owned a $400 million dollar building in a major downtown city in the US or Canada or Europe, without question it would be mandatory to come back to the office.
Pretty much all CBD's in the US have been hit hard. So many people are remote workers now and may not return to the office building (s) after the pandemic. If I owned a $400 million dollar building in a major downtown city in the US or Canada or Europe, without question it would be mandatory to come back to the office.
As a building owner you couldn't force employers to make it mandatory to work in the office.
Areas that are heavily business oriented and w/o much of a critical mass of residents will be in some degree of trouble. Places that have a significant portion of residents along w/ businesses will be OKish. Places like Atlanta/Dallas IMO will end up the big winners.
Louisville’s had a double whammy between covid and the protests from Breonna Taylor tragedy. It was not a very resident heavy downtown to begin with, the apartment communities in the vicinity have more vacancies than I’ve seen and are offering some pretty heavy discounts. The loss of the office crowd and the reliance on tourists have left it with a pretty significant hit to its vibrancy. It’s not a place that local residents traditionally go for entertainment and most of them won’t go anywhere near at the moment.
I’d say it’s got to be one of the hardest hit. Huge difference between now and a year ago.
Target Corp (biggest employer) has been and still is WFH, and announced they are giving up the lease on one of their buildings permanently.
Their skyway system functioned as a commerce escape from the cold, almost looking like an airport concourse full of restaurants and shops during the 9-5 MF. Not so much anymore.
I barely travelled in 2020, but I did go to Asheville a few times to visit my parents and the downtown over last Christmas and Summer was pretty much as bustling as it was before the pandemic.
I was briefly in DC for a day over New Years weekend and the downtown is dead. All the Smithsonian museums and National Archives are closed and Federal Offices doing telework so really no reason for workers or tourists to be down there and residential population of downtown DC is tiny compared the density of the surrounding neighborhoods. It was strangely pleasant and peaceful though walking around the mall and Smithsonian outdoor gardens with almost nobody around.
Interestingly enough I was in downtown Baltimore the following day and while street activity was down due to restaurants and bars being take out only, it was still much much more vibrant and alive than downtown DC likely because of the large residential population in the inner harbor area sustaining businesses. I didn't see many shuttered businesses and it was anything but bleak IMO.
My grandma lives in downtown Savannah and she has said all the tour buses and restaurants downtown have been full the past few months and there are tourists packing the sidewalks everywhere (which is no surprise considering its been business as usual for Georgia most of the pandemic).
I would guess that downtowns in smaller historic tourism-focused cities in the South like Asheville, Charleston, Savannah, St. Augustine and New Orleans are still doing OK. Less so in the large urban downtowns with less residential and tourism economy and more commuter economies.
I'll be in Chicago and Milwaukee at the end of May for my first real extended vacation since 2019 so will report back what I see there once I return. Hoping the vibrancy of the cities largest urban centers will bounce back soon after the pandemic winds down.
Amazon and Microsoft have both announced that they plan to be office-oriented again, at least as the primary mode. That's about 110,000 HQ workers iirc in Downtown Seattle (AMZN), Redmond (MSFT), and Downtown Bellevue (both). That's going to be some enormous steps in the right direction.
Downtown Seattle is pretty slow but I see nothing like the worst reports as a CBD visitor once or twice a month. It's mostly just quiet. Also, my area on the fringe, Belltown, feels downright prosperous during the day and early evenings.
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